New Worker Banner

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

Enter the Binman...

Summer is known as the silly season in the press because the long parliamentary recess means they have to fill their columns with even more rubbish to make up the difference. And nothing, perhaps, could be more sillier than the epic battle between Nigel Farage and Count Binface in a run-down former sea-side resort in north Essex.

The leader of Reform hoped to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny of his dodgy undeclared gifts and donations by resigning to trigger a by-election and re-contest in his own constituency. But his dream of trouncing the Tories and his other political foes in the poll has turned sour with all the mainstream parties boycotting the election and leaving the field to Binface and a legion of others seeking their fifteen minutes of fame on the streets of Clacton today.

Count Binface is the street persona of Jon Harvey, a stand up comic who has been a familiar face at by-elections since 2017. Binface upholds the rights of every citizen to stand in elections and gets a protest vote that many left groups would envy these days. Now the Count is playing for higher stakes on an ethical platform that challenges all that the Faragists stand for.

Clacton-on-Sea is one of the poorest towns in Essex. Forty seven per cent of Clacton’s residents over 16 are classified as “economically inactive” as they say. One in five working-age adults have never held a traditional job. High unemployment and the drugs and petty crime that go along with it have made this traditional Tory homeland the prey for the Faragists and their kind in recent years.

Some argue that the left should have joined the 30-odd others in the fray but this would be pointless given the absence of any substantial working-class movements in the constituency apart from the trade unions and the co-ops. Others say Clacton deserves more than a comic candidate to represent them. They certainly deserve someone better than Nigel Farage. At the end of the day those who bother to vote will decide. Who knows...it is, after-all, the silly season...